Trump's great guessing game

Washington

WE'RE all playing a guessing game. During the campaign, Donald Trump made many promises. But whether friend or foe, we don't know what he will actually do. The result is a deluge of predictions from politicians, pundits, think-tanks, lobbyists, economists and others. Here, for example, is the outlook of economists at Nomura Securities.

Conceding enormous "uncertainty", the economists predict that large tax cuts, costing US$3 trillion in lost revenues over the next decade, will be the centrepiece of Mr Trump's economic programme. Coupled with the tax cuts would be US$500 billion in added spending, mostly for infrastructure and defence. These amounts enlarge budget deficits, already estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be US$8.6 trillion over the decade.